Hands Off! Baby, Hands Off!

I was walking through the grocery store with my 5-month-old daughter in the cart the other day when I was stopped by a woman who noticed that my daughter did not have shoes on her feet. “Oh, she is so cold,” the woman told me. “Thank you. She’s okay,” I responded. “She needs to have her feet covered,” the woman continued as she began to try to pull my daughter’s pant legs down to cover as much of her feet as possible. Throughout the course of the exchange, the woman also felt my daughter’s hands and her face, undoubtedly checking to judge just how cold she really was.

Call me crazy, but when did it become acceptable for complete strangers to walk up to other people’s children and start putting their hands all over them – as they criticize their parents, no less. I have to say that, if I wanted the opinion of some stranger in the grocery store, I would, at least, be talking to the pharmacist or the kid who stocks the baby items. If I wanted someone to be putting his or her hands all over my kid as I stand by and cringe, I would bring her over to my mother-in-law’s house. Otherwise, the chances are that I already know that my daughter did not have shoes on her feet, thank you very much. It is a choice that I have made to bring her to the grocery store without shoes. Maybe this is because she is not yet walking and, so, doesn’t need the shoes everywhere she goes. I already have an economic-stimulus-sized bag full of her “essentials” to carry around with me. Or maybe I didn’t bring along her shoes because she flicks them off every chance she gets and the last thing that I need is to lose the overpriced kicks that my mother ran out to buy (we were heading to Payless when she darted to her preferred shoe store faster than Michael Phelps can swim the 400m individual medley). It seems that, no matter where I go, there is somebody ready and willing to comment on my ability to parent my child. “The baby is too cold.” “She is too warm.” “She is crying too much.” “She needs to be bounced.” “She needs to be rocked.” “She needs to be held still.” “Sing to her.” “Give her some quiet.” I have been given more suggestions than steroid-using baseball players are given second chances. You name it, I have been directed to do it by people whom I have never seen before and will never see again. I often wonder if these people are commenting on my child because they can’t seem to get things right with their own. Or maybe their children are already grown and they simply miss the opportunity to tell somebody what to do. Here is a message to all of those folks – stop. I am not yours to direct and my baby is not yours to protect. Is the Mother Theresa area of your brain satiated after saving my baby’s feet from the harsh chill of the canned food aisle? And, even if you are successful in covering up my child’s feet by pushing me aside to be the momentary surrogate parent, what do you think is going to happen the next time that I go to the grocery store or anywhere else for that matter? I am going to parent my child the way that I am going to parent her. Chances are that, if I am doing it, I think that it is an acceptable thing to do. Just ask my wife about things that I consider acceptable on a day that I helped my 4-year-old pick out his clothes. But, like it or not, these are my choices to make with my child (or, in the case of my 4-year-old, they are my choices until my wife sees what he is wearing). Until I’m sharing health insurance benefits with the stranger in the grocery store, she does not have the right to try to save my child from my parental choices.

All of this begs the question, what is the best way to tell someone to back off when they begin becoming more interested in what you are doing with your child than Pee Wee Herman in an X-rated movie theater? I suppose you can say, “We’re doing just fine,” and walk away. You can even humor them and thank them for their advice. But as I said, where I draw the line is when that stranger touches my child. So, for goodness sake, don’t make me go all Christian Bale on you in public.

Maybe it’s just me…

Written by Hubby